Interesting paper about the costs of operating a human milk bank!

[Stefan Johansson]

I wanted to share an interesting paper from the UK, about the costs of operating a human milk bank.

Donor human milk is what most of us prefer before preterm formula, until there is mother's own milk, so the interest in banking seems to be increasing. There is even a European Milk Bank Association.

We run a relatively large milk bank in our hospital, serving the four NICUs in Stockholm with donor milk (our NICU + three Karolinska NICUs), I think our milk bank handles a few qubic meters of donor milk (few 1000 liters) per year.

The paper below is from the UK and they surveyed all UK Milk Banks (but all did not reply) about the costs. The results? The total average annual cost of operating a milk bank was £202 719 per year. The cost per litre averaged £173 (range £95–£275).

I don't know whether to think about this as expensive or not, and how it compares to fortifiers, vitamins, iron drops, probiotics, MCT oil and other supplements that may be given on a daily basis? Say a litre is 200 GBP/EUR, then a daily volume of 160 ml/kg/d would mean that the milk cost is 32 GBP/EUR per day for a 1kg infant.

Cheap as chips?! Would be great to hear your thoughts

https://fn.bmj.com/content/early/2024/09/26/archdischild-2024-327543